End of Spring Playlist #2

The Heart Is A Stone

1. Aurelio - Mayahuaba (no video available)
2. Beach House - 10 Mile Stereo
3. The Watson Twins - Just Like Heaven
4. Bon Iver - Blood Bank
5. eastmountainsouth - Hard Times
6. Flight of the Conchords - Friends
7. Local Natives - Wide Eyes
8. The Love Language - Summer Dust
9. Miniature Tigers - Dark Tower
10. Quadron - Slippin
11. R.E.M. - Oh My Heart
12. Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs - New York City's Killing Me
13. The Watson Twins - Lady Love Me (no video available)
14. Avi Buffalo - One Last
15. Beach House - Take Care
16. I Nine - Same In Any Language
17. Iron & Wine - Half Moon

End of Spring Playlist #1

Some People Say That We're Incredible

note: links are youtube videos (except 16 which is vimeo)

1. Miniature Tigers - Bullfighter Jacket
2. Quadron - Pressure
3. The Love Language - Heart To Tell
4. Beach House - Used To Be
5. Flight of the Conchords - Hurt Feelings
6. Local Natives - Sun Hands
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Soft Shock
8. LCD Soundsystem - I Can Change
9. Avi Buffalo - What's In It For?
10. Miniature Tigers - Lolita
11. Aurelio - Tio Sam
12. Iron & Wine - Tree By The River
13. The Love Language - Brittany's Back
14. Local Natives - Who Knows Who Cares
15. The Swell Season - Feeling the Pull
16. The Watson Twins - Savin' You
17. Wait What - Juicy-R

We interrupt the silence to bring you...

In lieu of yarn content (I've been too lazy to upload pictures), here, watch this awesome stop motion claymation video for the song "Charlie Darwin" by the Low Anthem. It's a beautiful, meditative song.



The character in the video is wearing a little crocheted sweater. Does that count as yarn content for this blog?

I did order more yarn for the Buncha Squares blanket, so that might be done sometime soon. I took a picture of the progress. Maybe you'll see it soon. :-P

A step beyond awesome

There's awesome.

Then there's Guster

Guster - I Wanna Know What Love Is from Dead Elm on Vimeo.

A step beyond awesome

It's pledge drive time at KEXP

and I just wanted to take a minute to demonstrate one of the reasons I love this radio station

They have awesome bands play in studio, then post videos for me to watch. :)

I (heart) KEXP

Avec toi, cheri, la vie est belle

I haven't talked about music for a while. I'm listening to so much great stuff right now that it would take too long to discuss it all, so let me just touch on one CD that I can't get enough of:

Amadou & Mariam's new one, Welcome to Mali. This duo met in a school for the blind. Their music is mostly in French, has a great world beat sound. I just LOVE this CD. I've listened to it at least twice per day since I got it on Tuesday. My favorite song, and the reason I was compelled to buy it, is the first track, Sabali. It starts out sounding like an old French song, something from the era of Edith Piaf or something, except the words she's singing at this point aren't actually French, then a synthy beat picks up, and a refrain of "Sabali, sabali, sabali" and some other African words. It isn't until more than 1:30 in that the French lyrics that I can understand start. They go:

Cheri je m'addresse a toi (Dear, I'm talking to you)
Avec toi cheri la vie est belle (With you, dear, life is beautiful)

Avec toi cheri (with you, dear)
C'est si bon, la vie (it's so beautiful, life)

Cheri je te fais un gros bisou (dear, I give you a huge kiss)
Je t'embrasse fort (I "hug" you firmly)

And there's lots of lalalalalas and ooo ooo ooos. It's just great.

The weather this weekend is GORGEOUS. I'm going to go listen to this outside now.

My new theme song?

Just maybe.

It must be in the air here!

Brr! It's chilly today. Good thing I finished up this cozy wool sweater!

The sleeves are definitely too short (and so's the body). But I haven't washed the thing yet. So we'll see. And it fits kind of weird in the shoulders. I definitely want to try EZ's seemless sweater technique again to see if I can get better results. Maybe in June.

I finished knitting the pieces of the modern lace henley. I still need to block them then knit the placket and collar and sew all the pieces together.

Also finished a pair of socks. Remnant Stripies!

I used yarn left over from Tracie's xmas socks and Christine's xmas socks. Not too impressed with these socks. They'll enter the gift pile.

With all these projects off the needles, that leaves just one sock in progress. Gasp! Must start new project ASAP! But I'm not sure what to start. I want to start my May sweater, but I'm still waiting for the pattern to arrive in the mail. I kind of feel like knitting a baby sweater--I could use some near-instant gratification.

Speaking of near-instant gratification, I did some sewing yesterday! I made some placemats.

I love the apple/pear fabric, and I think the leaves match it pretty well. I'm going to machine quilt around the fruit. I'm also working on some cloth napkins out of the same 2 fabrics, but these are proving to be more laborious.

I've been listening to so much great music lately. I don't want to take the time to go into all of it, but today I'm grooving to local kids Say Hi (formerly Say Hi to Your Mom, which I think is a hilarious band name). Their newest CD, Oohs & Aahs, is great, clap your hands, dance around music. They're playing tomorrow night with Cloud Cult at Neumos. And I'm totally going, whether I can find someone to go with me or not! :)

This Tornado Loves You

And now, as promised...

What I've been listening to: Neko Case's new album, Middle Cyclone, has been my constant soundtrack for the past week or so. The music is a perfect blend of country, folk and rock. The lyrics are pure poetry. Nature is a recurrent theme, as is love. Neko's voice is perfectly showcased throughout.

I'm having a hard time picking just one favorite song. The title track, Middle Cyclone, is in the running for my favorite. I love the slow, mellowness of it; the simplicity of the guitar; the music box-like tingling sounds. And this song contains my favorite lyric from the whole album:

Can't scrape together quite enough to ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love.

The album contains 14 songs, then a 30 minute track of quiet bird chirping. I love this little addition. In my head, their thought processes went something like:

Music exec 1: "Well, this is sure a great album, but there's all this leftover space on the disc."
Music exec 2: "I know! Let's put in 30 minutes of quiet bird chirping!"
Music exec 1: "Awesome idea. You deserve a promotion."

Hehe.

What I've been reading: After finishing David Sedaris's underwhelming book, I was pleased to discover such humor in Sloane Crosley's gem, I Was Told There'd Be Cake. The author is a woman only a couple years older than me who lives in New York. Her essays reflect what it's like growing up in suburbia in the 80s and 90s, and what it's like living in the city now. You might not appreciate the humorous situations if you're, say, a 50 year old woman living in a moderately sized city. But if you're an almost-thirtysomething living in NYC, this might be just the book for you.

A day late

I was sooooo close to finishing this red tee by my goal: 2/28. Only 1 day late, which is acceptable considering that I wasted a week on this thing. I opted for shorter sleeves--I like it like it like this:

Now that my February sweater is done, I'm antsy to get started on my March sweater. Unfortunately, the yarn is packed away in one of the 19 boxes at my mom's office. I only have one ball of sock yarn here, and I tried to cast on for a pair of socks, but the needle I should use with this yarn is currently being used by another project, so that will have to wait. What's a girl to do without yarn for a project??? Go scope out one of the local yarn stores, of course! I hiked (literally) up to the top of Queen Anne Hill to check out Hilltop Yarn. It's a cute little shop in an old house. I wasn't too impressed with their selection. But I did get a skein of Noro Kureyon sock yarn (color 236--gray, green, teal). I think I'm just going to make plain socks with this; no pattern to distract from the colors.

While up on QA, I stopped by the library and signed up for a library card. I really like it up there--it would be awesome to live there, though it's a bit out of the way. It was a gorgeous today! I know you Eastcoasters are experiencing the lion-y aspects of March's entrance, but here, it's full-on lamb. Shops were leaving their doors and windows open. I saw people in shorts and tank tops!

In addition to my wanderings at the top of QA, I also spent some time browsing the offerings of Easy Street at the bottom of the hill. Right now I'm listening to one of my finds: Rufus sings Judy (Rufus Wainwright at Carnegie Hall). :D Fun stuff.

I (heart) DCFC

New Death Cab video :D

Grapevine Fires

Countdown

Only 2 more nights in NYC. I'm so excited but also freaking out. I made another stop on my Farewell EastCoast tour this weekend with a quick trip down to DC to visit Anna and Matt.

It was so much fun to hang out with them. I really hope they decide to settle in Seattle. We went out to super yummy dinner with some of their friends, went to a couple of farmers markets, played some poker (I won), watched the oscars (I won this too--too bad we didn't bet). Anna wore this super cute little cardigan from Boden and I was so fascinated by the stitch pattern that I spent a good 10 minutes studying it and taking notes so that I could copy it. :D This is what the knit side looks like

but the neat thing about this cardigan is that this is the inside. The purl side is showing (don't have a pic of this) and it looks really cool. I'm going to try to recreate this for one of my sweaters this year.

Speaking of knitting, I've made a good deal of progress on the Sixteen-Point Tee. But it is slow going. I guess I didn't realize that knitting a sweater on size 5s would go significantly slower than knitting a sweater on size 7s or 8s. Even after knitting the entire bus ride to and from DC and all through the oscars, I've just divided for the sleeves.

But I'm still hopeful that it will be ready to wear to my party this Saturday--I have today, tomorrow, and let us not forget the flight on Friday: 5.5 hours of prime knitting time. If only I'd done a gauge swatch at the outset, instead of after knitting for a week.... Oh well.

As a soundtrack for the knitting, I've been listening to a lot of Andrew Bird. His new CD is called Noble Beast and it is so lovely. His voice, the harmonies, the music, his violin! I love it. And there's some prime wistling on here too--you know I love wistling!

Other music coming out of my speakers lately: the soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire. Fun music. I especially like the two versions of M.I.A.'s Paperplanes it has. I think it might be time for me to get an M.I.A. CD into my collection. Hmmm.

What I've been reading: Just finished Revolutionary Road. Without a doubt, a good book. However, I felt like I was reading the screenplay of the movie--the similarities were so great.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm just used to books giving me more than movies. This happened a few times--the book gave a bit more background about what the characters were thinking and feeling in certain scenes that I didn't get in the movie. And this isn't to say that I wish I hadn't read the book. I just wish it had been more. Now, if I'd read the book first, then seen the movie, I probably would have remarked at what a good job Sam Mendes did at capturing the whole book in his movie. And this is true. But I don't think this book is a must read. Just go see the movie. One big difference: the very end. And I think I like the movie's better. More uplifting after such a heavy story.

What I've been watching: I've already extolled on my love of Hulu, but let me just reiterate it's greatness. In my queue right now: Last night's Daily Show and Colbert Report. I broke my no-movies-until-employed rule last week and went to see Waltz with Bashir. Probably the best movie I could break the rule for. This movie is an animated documentary about an unsavory bit of Israeli history. So well made. Moving. Left me speechless afterward.

I would like to take a small moment to say that I love Mini Eggs. I'm not sure what it is about them--the crisp candy shell so different from M&Ms? the awesome cadbury chocolate inside? Maybe it's just the fact that they're only available during a part of the year. Or maybe it's that their arrival on store shelves heralds the upcoming arrival of spring.

So yummy!

Chill out or dance around

What I've been listening to: Oh, Joshua Radin. Can I describe your music as dreamy? Maybe describe you as dreamy? I really enjoyed Radin's first CD, We Were Here, and I think I like this new one, Simple Times, just as much, maybe a bit more. I've only a few listens to it, but the first song that jumped at me was Sky. He sings on it with some woman (maybe Ingrid Michelson?) and it's so lovely. The refrain is catchy: "Oh, oh, oh, oh, you know the way to keep me on my toes/ I, I, I will be fine - just say you'll stay forever mine." Another sing I liked instantly is Vegetable Car, with the refrain: "She drives a vegetable car/ diesel Mercedes, green, two door/ I barely know who you are/ Lisa Loeb glasses I'd sure like to ask you to stay." That's probably the most uptempo song on the album, but still so chill.

When I'm feeling for more engertic music, I turn to Ben Folds's new album, Way to Normal. I never know quite what I'm going to get with a Ben Folds album. I can always count on quality piano playing and slightly off key singing, but what the songs are going to be like is more up for grabs. On Songs For Silverman, many of the songs seemed deeply meaningful, pieces of social commentary or the heartbreaking love-song for his kid, Gracie. Way to Normal is different from the past few Folds release, and, to me, it feels a bit like a return to older stuff, Ben Folds Five stuff, the stuff that made me deeply devoted to Ben Folds when I spent a whole entire summer in the early 2000s listening to Whatever and Ever Amen and the Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Mesner over and over and over... And I'm glad for that. Many of the songs on this album are dance-around-your-bedroom uptempo--a nice antidote to all the moody alt rock flowing from the speakers of my stereo all too often. I bought this album for the song You Don't Know Me, featuring the divine Ms Regina Spektor. I kept hearing this song on the radio (thank you, WFUV) and the chorus would end up stuck in my head for hours! The tune more so than the lyrics is sooooo catchy. And while this song was what originally propelled me to fork over the $ for this CD, Cologne is the song that keeps me listening, the song I want to put on repeat and listen to over and over. This song above all the others really harkens back to the old days of BF5 for me, with its cascading piano and lush orchestration. The chorus is good: "4, 3, 2, 1, I'm letting you go. I will let go if you will let go." And there's a reference to that crazy lady who wore the diaper to drive across the country to kill her boyfriend. :)

New Day

I've decided to give this blogging thing another go. My goal is going to be once a week. We'll see how that goes...

What I've been knitting: Now that the madness of holiday gift knitting is past, I've been plugging away at a few projects for me. A pair of socks, Flaming Nuts, from the Nutkin pattern.

I've reversed the pattern, I didn't like the way my ssk's looked in the pattern--I much prefer the k2tog. Also, the pattern on the leg really wants to twist, so I decided to do a plain stockinette foot to avoid annoying twisting on the foot. The yarn is Hazel Knits, a Christmas gift from Melisa last year. It's beautiful--soft and squishy!

I finished my second shawl a few weeks ago, and just got around to blocking it yesterday. It's Laminaria, from Knitty. The yarn is Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Lace, and it is just divine. I didn't block this shawl quite as severly as I might have, it's definitely a shawl-ette, but I love it. I wasn't sure what I would do with it when it was done (probably why it took me so long to finish it), but now I've decided that I'm going to keep it.

My main project right now is my adaptation of the 28Thirty cropped cardigain. I'm un-cropping it. I'm using wonderfully cheap yarn, Wool of the Andes from knitpicks, in Amethyst Heather, purchased with a christmas gift certificate. I just started this last week, but it's been cruising along.

What I've been reading: Since I finished school last month, I've been reading up a storm. In the last two weeks I've read the following: The White Tiger, The Emperor's Children, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Twilight #3, and now I'm reading Twilight #4. I could go on an on about why I loved each of these books, but I don't want to sit here at the computer all day.

What I've been listening to: Oh, I cannot get enough to Taylor Swift! I had been mildly interested in her music, but then I saw her performance on SNL and she won me over. Her music is the perfect accompaniment to the Twilight Saga--teen angst all around from every angle. :) I've also been rocking out to a little Mates of State, and mellowing out with Blind Pilot.

What I've been watching: Well, right now I'm watching CNN picture-in-picture with other stuff from the DVR, waiting for the inaugural action to start. Movie-wise, I saw Revolutionary Road a few days ago, and I can see why Kate Winslet won the Golden Globe. I can also tell that the movie was made by her husband. It was a very moving story. Well shot. Another movie I loved recently was Slumdog Millionaire.

Also in the watching department, I watched the whole "season" of Children's Hospital, on theWB.com--laughing my ass off! This spoof of hospital dramas is written and directed by Daily Show alum Rob Corddry. Soooooo funny!

Today is my last day of vacation. So sad that it's ending, but it helps to know that I have less than 5 weeks of work left--which means less than 6 weeks in NYC. I bought my plane ticket to Seattle yesterday, I leave 2/27. Crazy. I've started packing. I packed one box yesterday, moderately heavy. And one today so heavy that I could barely lift it! I'll have to repack that one lighter, some how.

My purple cardi is calling to me. Gotta go!